Sunday, April 15, 2018

Beginning in
Palaeolithic times, a group of closely related Arctic cultures with their own shamanic
institutions were arrayed across Northern Fennoscandia, including what are present-day
Norway, Sweden, Finland, Karelia and the Kola Peninsula of Russia (see map
below).Zachrisson says that today there
is “general agreement” that continuity exists from these shamanic northern hunter-gatherer-fisher
cultures to later traditional Saami cultures. (1) For
this reason I will refer to the Arctic-Saamishamanic complex. (I previously termed it the Post-Ahrensburg
complex, referencing the Palaeolithic culture from which it originated.)

The shamanic
complex to the south is what Siikala calls the “shamanic complex of the
sub-Arctic coniferous zone”, based primarily upon the Uralic culture. The
complex extended from its creative centre in the Volga-Oka region of
present-day Russia (see map above) to shamanic institutions on the east, as far
as the Urals and beyond, and on the west to the shamanic institutions of
Finland and Karelia. Siikala says that “many features of Finnish shamanism”
point to this complex. I will refer to it here as the Uralic-Finnishshamanic
complex. (2) (I previously called it the post-Swiderian complex,
based on the Palaeolithic culture from which it originated.)

Siikala writes
that although both the Arctic-Saami and the Uralic-Finnish shamanistic complexes
were peopled by hunter-gatherer-fishers who were animist in orientation, they
“differ markedly”. (2)

Anna-Leena Siikala, the late pre-eminentscholar of Finnish shamanism

Finnish
archaeologist Christian Carpelan is even more emphatic, calling the differences
between the two complexes “fundamental in nature”. (3)

Christian Carpelan, Finnish Archaeologist

Carpelan
says that the Arctic tradition, centred in Northern Fennoscandia, “had
significantly differentiated from the underlying background of the Uralic
heritage.” He suggests that “One possible explanation is that when spreading
into the north the Saami incorporated some unknown non-Uralic people and
culture.” On the other hand, the “Finnish heritage largely preserved the core
conceptions of the Uralic proto-culture.” (3)

There is overlap
of the mythologies of the two shamanic complexes, enough that Napolskikh reconstructed
a mythological and cosmological ‘world picture’ that incorporated features from
both.(7) However, I
have argued that the complexes fundamentally differed from one another in terms
of their ontologies—Layton’s “indigenous theories of how the world
works”—that lie below the level of mythology. (4)In Part 4 of Shamanism and
Sacred Arts in Finland I
explained this as a
case of different ‘ontological frames’, and will now review the argument I
presented there.

Ontological Frames

To review, I
argued that the hunter-gatherer-fisher bands of each complex were not alone in
the wilderness; they lived among a host of other-than-human beings.Central among these beings were the spirit
persons who were the guardians of the land and of the game of a region.Developing a relationship with them through
the rites of animal ceremonialism was essential to secure the continuing supply
of game upon which survival depended.I identified
three core elements of animist ontology that are central to meeting this
challenge, phrased here as questions about the relationship of ‘this world’
(Finnish, ‘this side’: tämänpuoleinen) to the ‘other world’ (‘that side’:
tuonpuoleinen).They are:

(1)What ontological forms do spirit
persons take?

(2)What is the nature of social
relations between human persons and spirit persons?

(3)What is the nature of the ‘sacred
geography’ of the worlds—of this world and the other world—where these social
relations take place?

I used term ‘ontological frame’ to refer to the set of answers that
a shamanic complex gives to the questions.I pointed out that an ontological frame did not make up a formal thought
system, but rather existed, in Ingold’s terms, as an “orientation that (was)
deeply embedded in everyday practice”. (5) Specifically, it framed and guided the work of a shaman (Finnish:
noita, Saami: noaidi) in contacting spirit persons of the other
world as part of the rites of animal ceremonialism, and the work of sacred
artists in fashioning objects and performances that helped make this
communication and these rites possible.These
objects and performances are, in Wallis’s terms, “’artworks’ (that) perform as
animate ‘persons’ with their own social intentionality and agentive
contribution to community life”. (6)

Neolithic elk head carving, National Museum of Finland (photo: Leppä)

As I said above, the ontologies of the Arctic-Saami
and Uralic-Finnish complexes differed from one another in fundamental ways, and
this is captured in the contrast of their ontological frames. The contrast is epitomized in their respective
answers to question #1 above, concerning the ontological forms taken by guardians
of the game of local areas. That is, while
the local guardian spirits persons of the Arctic-Saami complex
were visible in the landscape as stone sieidis, those of the Uralic-Finnish complex, haltijat,
were normally invisible and without a home in ‘this world’.

Eriunan seita, a sieidi near Enontekiö, Finland (16)

Following
from the differences in the ontological form of local guardian spirit persons
of the complexes—one visible and embodied in ‘this world’, and the other
invisible and residing in ‘that world’—the two complexes and their associated
institutions also differed in the locations for engaging with the guardians and
the means of doing so.All of this had
significant implications for the respective lifeways of the two complexes, the most
important here being the nature of their sacred arts.

A fanciful modern depiction of a forest

haltija (at left) with a householdhaltija

In view of
the considerable differences between their ontological frames, I consider the
complexes to have displayed two distinct subtypes of animist ontology. In the case of the Arctic-Saami complex, I
call the subtype totemist-animist, and in that of the Uralic-Finnish complex
I apply the term ‘classic’animist. I have adapted the work of Timothy Ingold in
making this distinction. (5) I will return to my reasoning here in a later post.

In Part 4 of
Shamanism and Sacred Arts in Finland, I suggested that by applying ontological
frames to the analysis of a work of sacred art, in coordination with
archaeological and ethnographic knowledge, we are better able to trace its
origin to a particular shamanic complex and to interpret its meaning.As an example of this method, I used an
abbreviated version of the Arctic-Saami ontological frame to analyse a Saami noaidi’s
drum that currently resides in the National Museum of Finland.

At that time
I promised to consider the two frames in greater depth, as this is required to
realise their full potential as part of an interpretive method for sacred art. I begin this in the present post with a brief picture of Arctic-Saami shamanism in prehistory, and then move to a consideration of the nature of documentary sources of evidence for it. I will
continue my exploration of the Arctic-Saami frame across a total of three posts.I will then move on to explore that of the
Uralic-Finnish shamanic complex.

Let us begin
by considering what is called the “crucial importance” of the landscape for
Arctic-Saami spirituality.

Significance of Landscape for theArctic-Saami Shamanic Complex

Mulk and Bayliss-Smith
explain that “the Sami religion is classified as a north Eurasian hunting
religion, but it developed its own form during the post-glacial period when the
Sami people lived as hunters, gatherers and fishers in relative isolation from
other Finno-Ugrian groups.”An original
fundamental feature of what the authors call “Sami religion” was the
far-reaching quality of “aliveness”, or animacy, of the physical landscape. (8)

In turn,
Svestad says the orientation of the early Saami to the physical landscape is of
“crucial importance” for understanding their spiritual concepts and
practices.What might have seemed to be
random elements of a particular local landscape where band lived, e.g., a lake,
a cliff, a stand of trees—what Svestad calls “nature at hand”—had significance
for how they constructed their graves, the rituals they conducted, and the
beliefs they held.(9)

Kalkuvaaran Akku, a Saami sacred place near Inari (16)

This was
because, as Skandfer says of the Saami of Finnmark, Norway, they held the view
that “nature is filled with spirituality...this implies that specific rocks,
mountains or lakes represent spiritual beings that you may come into contact
with through suitable offerings.” (10)

According to
Rydving it was these spiritual beings who were “bound to the landscape and to
certain natural formations” who were “important in daily life” for the Saamis,
rather than “the beings that missionaries (and scholars) have called
divinities”.(11)

Sieidis

Foremost
among the spirit persons who were ‘bound to the landscape’ were the sieidis.According to Koski, who is a linguist, a ‘sieidi’
is “a kind of deity”, a “personified ‘god or spirit’ residing at a place”. (12) The most common forms of personification of the sieidi
deity were large anomalous stone boulders or rock cliffs, generally unaltered
by human hands.The term sieidi
was also sometimes applied to mountains, sacred fells’ (high barren plateaus), oddly-shaped
trees and stumps, carved poles, caves, and rocky clefts.However, the stone sieidis were
considered to be the most sacred. (17) For
this reason I will concentrate on them here.

The Näkkäläsieidi (photograph by Anssi Malinen) (16)

Although the
oldest written source that mentions sieidi worship is from the 16th
century, the sieidi is one of the original aspects of pre-Christian
religion of Saamis. Various authors date
it back to the Stone Age. One indication
of its age is the fact that the root of the word sieidi , s’ejt,
dates from before the time of the appearance of Finno-Ugric languages, suggesting
at least an early Mesolithic origin. (13)

Karsten
explains the nature of the sieidi tradition, saying, “The so-called seidi,
whether of stone or wood, was not worshipped in itself, i.e., merely as a
material object, but because of the belief that the stone or wooden idol was
inhabited by a spiritual being which was the local tutelary spirit not only of
this particular material object, but of the whole place surrounding it.” (14) This place included the land and the animals on it.

Carpelan
says that while the Saami were powerless before the highest and lowest deities
of the tripartite worlds, in the middle were the “seita stones on the
fells and lakeshores”, the deities who were the “local patrons of means of
livelihood”.They were “known to operate
ultimately on the same conditions as the Saami”, i.e., they were approachable
and amenable to negotiation for a continuing supply of game and fish through
the rites of animal ceremonialism. (3)

Sieidis: A Pan-Arctic Phenomenon

Sieidis and sieidi-like stones were
common across the Arctic-Saami shamanic complex of Northern Fennoscandia.Karsten says, “Sieidi fetishes…existed
all over the Lapp (Saami) territory from the Kola peninsula in the east
to the Norwegian Arctic Ocean in the west.”Among them were the Sight or sight-kades of the
Kola Lapps, the junkevarre of Norwegian Lapps, the storjunkars of
the Saami of northern Sweden, and the sieidis of the Saami of
Finland.(14)

The
tradition of embodied stone deities extends even beyond Fennoscandia, forming a
pan-Arctic phenomenon. That is, living to the east of Fennoscandia were
Samoyed-speaking peoples with related shamanic institutions.They included the Nanets, Enets, Selkup, as
noted on the map above.According to
Karsten, “the Samoyeds…who are culturally closely related to the Lapps, worship
idols similar to the Lapp sieidis, which they call schandai.”(14)

Saivos

The saivo—a
type of nature spirit—was the other important spiritual being of the Arctic-Saami
shamanic complex who was ‘bound to the landscape’. The ‘homes’ of saivos were inside
sacred mountains and fells (high barren plateaus). These abodes of the nature spirits were also
referred to as saivos.(15)

An example of
a saivo is the sacred Saana Fell, near Kilpisjärvi in Lapland, Finland, pictured
below.

The Saana Fell, a sacred abode of saivo. A white reindeer, that was

prized as a sacrificial animal, grazes in the foreground. (photo: Sarah Alden)

Certain lakes
were saivas, serving as the homes of water saivos. The tradition of saiva lakes was
especially strong in Sweden and Finland.
These sacred lakes had no apparent inflows or outflows, and were seen by
the Arctic-Saamis as having ‘two bottoms’.
That is, beyond a hole at the bottom of the lake, there was another
identical lake, upside down, where the water saivos lived in a world
like our own. (16)

Pakasaivo, a saiva lake, near Muonio, northern Finland

Inside these
places in the landscape—sacred mountains, fells and lakes—the saivo
nature spirits carried on lives, with houses, families and possessions. Hultkrantz says, “Several of our old source
authors have described the delightful life that the saivo people lead
inside the sacred mountains.” They would
occasionally be visited by noaidi, who would speak and share with them. (17)

According to
Hultkrantz, quoting Backman, saivo nature spirits were of two main
types: helping spirits and guardian spirits.Helping spirits were the property of the shaman, the noaidi , and
they helped him in a variety of ways, such as accompanying him on soul
journeys.They were the bird, fish or
snake, and the reindeer bull.Hultkrantz
says, “Of these three, the wild reindeer (sa´iva sarva) was most
important. The deer of the noaidi was a manifestation of his power, his
alter ego. In his ecstatic journeys, the noaidi couldassume its shape, or send it out to fight the
deer of another shaman.” (15)

The guardian
spirits could serve the shaman, but also any Saami person. Through owningthe mountain in which they dwelled, one or
more guardian saivos could be owned.A single family could count a
number of mountains and their saivos as property, that could be
inherited, sold, or passed on at death. (15)

Hultkrantz
says the guardian saivo spirits contracted with their owner to bestow
reindeer luck, fishing and hunting luck, save his life when in danger, to scout
for him and to exact revenge when he was injured by another person. “In
compensation they demanded their tribute, that is, sacrifices.” (15) In this
way the saivos were like sieidis.

A particular
class of guardian spirits mainly helped the shaman, called passevare olmai,
“Holy Mountain Men”.Anthropomorphic in
form, they helped prepare a person to enter the calling of shaman and gave
advice and counsel to the shaman as needed after that. (15)

Sieidis in the Context of Subsistence

Speaking of the
nature of hunting in early northern forager cultures, Lauri Honko says “The
hunter … is conscious of being an interloper on another’s territory.” That is,
“It is not enough for the hunter to know the location of the best fishing or
hunting places or the phasing of the best seasons for catching a particular
quarry, he must also know about the spiritual being—the master or mistress—who
rules over the forests and waters and all their inhabitants.” (18)From the viewpoint
of the Khanty, one of the northern forager cultures, success in hunting is as
much about relationships with these spiritual beings as it is about an
individual’s technical hunting ability. (18)

Honko says
that for the Saami, “the supranormal forces governing a particular section of
hunting territory or stretch of fishing water were thought to inhabit a sieidi.”
(18) Karsten
states that “Any success in hunting or reindeer-breeding, and luck in
fishing—in case the seidi was situated at the shore of a lake—depended
on the favour of the ‘haldo’ of the place, materialised in the seidi.”(14)(Note here that the terms ‘haldo’ and ‘haldi’ refer to the
deity in her aspect as guardian of the local land and animals.)

Above is the photo of a ‘fish sieidi’, the Lake Säytsjärvi sieidi,

said to be the zoomorphic image of a fish’s nose. (16)

Accordingly,
one of the first priorities of a band of the Arctic-Saami complex when entering
a new hunting or fishing area, was to locate the sieidi within what
Svestad calls “nature at hand”. Itkonen,
as quoted by Aikas, says that when the Saami came “to the shore of a lake where
they had not yet fished, they chose as a fish sieidi a large stone in an
island or in the water near the shore.” (16) Similarly,
Fellman wrote that, in the words of Aikas, “When people came to a new hunting
place, they chose a sieidi stone there.” (16)

In northern
Sweden, the Saami bands searching for the local guardian deity would have been
alert for a stone with anthropomorphic (human-like) or zoomorphic (animal-like)
physical features.Where one was
encountered, it would be recognised as the háldi that they called a storjunker,
the name given in Sweden to the sacred stone.According to Schefferus, the “Storjunkar is
represented with a stone: the form of which they imagine to bear some
resemblance to a bird, sometimes to a man, and sometimes to some other
creature; and so strong is their fancy, that they really believe it represents
their storjunkar, and worship it accordingly.”(19)

Aikas says
that anthropomorphic shape is a frequent characteristic of sieidis
across Fennoscandia, including in northern Finland. (16)Above are photos of three figurative sieidis,
out of the 100 sieidis in Finland that have been have been identified
where there is some certainty about their location.Sieidis in human form—like the one at
the left in the photo above, from Haukkasaari—were considered the most
sacred.Nearly as important were those
in the form of a bird, such as the sieidi from Kivijarvi, at the right.

While figurative,
i.e. anthropomorphic and zoomorphic, sieidis are common in Finland, this
was only one of the distinguishing features of stones that guided bands of the
Arctic-Saami shamanic institution of early Finland in identifying local sieidis.In fact, most sieidi stones in Finland
are non-figurative.While a
non-figurative stone was called by a different name in Sweden, saite, according
to Aikas, “In the area of Finland…both figurative and non-figurative offering
stones have been called sieidis.”(16)

Sieiddakeädgi in Utsjoki, Finland (16)

Above is a
photo of a non-figurative sieidi, Sieiddakeädgi . The hole in the stone, large enough for a
person to crawl into it, made it distinctive. The hole is considered to have
sacred significance of its own, perhaps as an entrance to the lower world.

According to
Samuli Paulaharju, quoted in Aikas, it was “unusual stones that were larger or
in some way different from others (that) caught his [the offerer’s]
attention.”(16) This could be anthropomorphic
or zoomorphic characteristics, but included as well other conspicuous features.
Huggert explain that, “An unusual geographical formation could indicate the
presence of the divinity.”(20)

The features
could be their shape, size, or colour. Lahelma says, “Many of the sieidi
are large erratic boulders that command the surrounding landscape.” (21) Other characteristics that have been mentioned by
writers include unusual cracks or grooves in the stone surface, the stone
standing alone in the landscape, or having broad sight lines.

In addition
to a conspicuous physical character, there were additional means identified in
the ethnographic literature that were
used for initially locating the stone which was the embodiment of the sieidi
deity.One of these was when there had
been a direct experience of the deity.Huggert,
speaking of a sieidi in Sweden, says “The stone setting marks the place
where the Saami had experienced the deity or spiritual being where they would
later return when necessary in order to come into contact with the divine
power, in front of the seite and directly under the open sky.” (20)As well, Manker suggests that a flash of
lightening could reveal it. (22) It could also
be confirmed by the testimony of a shaman who slept overnight next to a stone. (16)

When a stone
was chosen as the likely embodiment of the sieidi deity, sacrificial offerings
were made, in Sarmela’s terms, to “win over” the sieidi. (32) This is part of what is sometimes referred to as
the ‘cult of sacrifice’, led by the noaidi, the shaman.

Archaeological remains of sacrifices of reindeer bones at

sieidi at the mouth of the River Koskikaltiojoki. (16)

Sacrifices
reflected the subsistence activity of the area over which the sieidi was
guardian.If it was a fishing sieidi,
the stone might be brushed with fish fat.When it was a hunting sieidi, it could be brushed with the blood
of game animals, such as a wild reindeer, and antlers and bones could be
offered to the sieidi once the meat was eaten. (14) Another type of offering
was a sacrificial meal of ‘human food’ eaten at the foot of the sieidi stone,
because, according to Aikas, “It was believed that the gods also became
nourished when people ate at the offering place.” (16)

After a band
had made offerings to the stone or cliff, evidence was sought that it was
indeed a sieidi, confirming the rightness of their choice.The most important form of evidence was the
subsequent experience of good fortune of the band in hunting or fishing—a
reciprocal gift from the sieidi as based on their offerings. J.A. Friis says,
“the Sámi considered sacred a place where they had had success hunting or
fishing.”(16)

Where the
stone was confirmed as a sieidi, the band—led by the noaidi and with
the assistance of his personal saivos—would go on to develop a reciprocal
relationship with her.A ‘contract’ would
be formed involving the promise of ongoing worship and sacrifices from the band
in exchange for continued success in hunting and fishing, as well as assistance
in maintaining the health and well-being of band members. However, where the band did not experience
good fortune in hunting or fishing, the stone would be abandoned. According to Karsten, “A seidi which in
spite of cult (of sacrifice) did not bring help evidently was no god at all,
and it was of no use to go on honouring a worthless natural object with costly
animal sacrifices.” (14)

Holmberg
reports a cautionary tale that was passed among the Saami.He says, “According to an inherited
tradition, the Lapps near the Sompio Lake were so modest and easily satisfied
in the choice of their gods, that they worshipped that which first met their
glance on going out from the tent — a stone, or the stump of a tree. The next
morning the Lapp would have a new god should his first glance in the morning
happen to fall on some other object." (23) Perhaps the
point of this story is that carelessness in identification of sieidis had
consequences for survival in the wilderness, diverting precious time and
resources to fruitless activity.It highlights
the substantial element of risk inherent in the subsistence activities in early
wilderness Finland, and the critical nature of the reciprocal relationship
between Saami bands and the sieidi.

Documentary Evidence

To this
point I have presented a preliminary sketch of Arctic-Saami shamanism as related
to the sieidi.I will make use of
it in a further post when I elaborate on the ontological frame of the complex.The information that I have used here is from
secondary accounts, since Saami themselves left few primary ones on their
pre-Christian lifeways and spirituality.A question needs to be asked: How trustworthy are the secondary documentary
sources that I have used?

The
foregoing account of the Saami traditions of sieidis and saivos, and
more that will appear in this and following posts, is drawn from translated
portions of writings of Lutheran missionaries to the Saami such as Thomas Von
Westen and Jacob Fellman, and by later authors who rely on their accounts, such
as Samuli Paulaharju and Rafael Karsten.The missionary sources represent the earliest accounts of Saami
spirituality and practices that, in the view of Hultkrantz, had changed little
from pre-Christian times. He says that “Still in the eighteenth century, when
the missionaries among the Saamis began to achieve notable results, the
traditional religion comprised mainly conceptions and rites belonging to the
hunting culture.”

If we wish
to use the accounts of the missionaries today, we must subject them to a prior critical
reading.Specifically, we must remain
aware of what we can call the ‘ontological filters’ the missionaries brought to
their work, or in Karsten’s words, the ways in which they were “regarding the
heathen through Christian eyes”.(14) I will
now explore the nature of these ‘ontological filters’, preparatory to using the
missionary accounts to expand upon the Arctic-Saami ontological frame.

The Accounts of Christian
Missionaries

The backdrop
of the writings of the missionaries was a long campaign by the Lutheran church,
across Fennoscandia, to convert the Saamis to Christianity.

Queen Margaret of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, 1353-1412

The earliest
official record of it is a 1389 letter written by Queen Margaret of Denmark,
Norway and Sweden that, according to Manker, “calls upon the Lapps (Saami) to
abandon their heathen faith and to integrate into the community of Christian
nations.” (22) By the 17th and 18th
centuries, the campaign was in its most intensive phase. It was then that missionaries produced the
body of writings about Saami indigenous spirituality that we rely upon today.

Missionaries
who studied and wrote about Saami indigenous spirituality had various motives
for doing so, but a primary one was to understand it in order to better combat
it.For example, Karsten says of Thomas
Von Westen, an early and prominent missionary, “Even to Von Westen the
conversion of the Lapps…to the only true religion was the principal thing, but
he was also animated by a certain scientific interest and besides this, he
realised that the work of conversion could be carried out successfully only by
those who knew something about their own ideas in matters of religion.A certain study of their pagan mythology
consequently was necessary.” (11) Based
on these motives, Von Westen provided the earliest descriptions of early Saami
practices, from which many other authors drew.

Thomas Von Westen pictured in his capacity of ministering to Saamis.

The writings
of the missionaries reflected the ontological frame of the Lutheran church of
Nordic countries of the time: stark dualisms of spirit versus matter and good
versus evil; and the tripartite realms of hell, the world, and heaven.The overriding mission of the church was to
convince or to compel the Saami to come over to the single ‘true God’, whose
ontological form is pure spirit and whose essence is pure good, and who
inhabits the realm of heaven, occupying a ‘sacred geography’ outside and above
nature. (11)

Instead of
seeing the powers of the indigenous deities as expressions of the material
world of nature in a relational, cyclical cosmos in which forces of darkness
and light interpenetrate one another—as did the Saamis—the missionaries
considered their powers to flow from the figure of the Devil, a ‘fallen’ spirit
with the essence of pure evil who inhabits the realm of hell.As a result, the sieidis and other
Saami deities were deemed to be ‘false gods’ and ‘idols’.(11)

Lapponia by Johannes Schefferus (1673)

Of
particular concern of missionaries were what I would call the reciprocal social
relations of the Saami with their deities, particularly their traditions of
worship and offerings at sieidis, and that of divination by means of
drums.The missionaries saw these
elements as central to the animistic spirituality of the Saami.(11)

A famous
sermon directed Saami parishionersto
the Bible passage about Joshua, who “urged the Israelites to worship God
instead of poor ‘gods of wood and stone’.” A sharper view was expressed by the
missionary Forbus, who said, referring to the Saami shaman drum and the animate
spirit beings on it:“Oh you confounded
Drum, tool and instrument of Satan, cursed are your depicted Gods….”Similarly, Jens Kildal called the drum and
its figures “the Bible of the Devil.” (11)

As suggested
by the difference in tone of the above quotes, there were divisions in the
church as to the leniency or strictness to be observed with regard to the
spiritual practices of the Saami.The
most sympathetic trend was that of ‘enlightened orthodoxy’, represented by Pehr
Högström.His writings contain some of
the best accounts of Saami spirituality, and even incorporate views and
arguments of Saami themselves.For
example, Högström counselled fellow missionaries that they should not move
against “idolatries” before they had conveyed to the Saami “clearer
conceptions” about Christian doctrine, and “this had to be done little by
little and gradually”.(11)

Pehr Högström, 1714-84

At the same
time, Högström was the priest who delivered the famous sermon on the Bible
passage about Joshua, that was highly influential for advancing the conversion
campaign of the church of the time.This
suggests that the accounts of all Lutheran missionaries in Fennoscandia in the
17th and 18th centuries need be read for the presence of
the ‘ontological filters”.Even in the
most sympathetic accounts the dualisms of good/evil, spirit/matter may colour
their observations.We will see more in
a later post how these ‘filters’ played out in their writings.

Secondary Accounts of Academics

A number of
academics and researchers, early and contemporary, have used the accounts of
the missionaries in their own writings on the animist spirituality of the
Saami.Their work cannot be exempted
from a process of critical reading, but with attention paid to an ontological
filter of a different kind.

Here we must
look to the influence of Edward Tylor who, according to the 2004 Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography Tylor was the ‘father of
anthropology’.(Anthropology was known
in the nineteenth century as ‘Mr. Tylor's science’.) Tylor was the principal theorist of what is
now termed the ‘old animism’ that long prevailed in anthropological
theory.Expressing what was the key
argument of his analysis of animism, he wrote of “ancient savage philosophers”
who falsely projected spirits or souls, ‘phantoms’, onto what were mere
objects.(24)

Edward Tylor, 1832-1917

Clearly
influenced by Tylor, one observer of the spirituality of the Saami wrote, “the
worship of seidi, taken as a whole, is an expression of the general
tendency of primitive man to animate the world surrounding him.Not only in himself and in the living nature
around him…does he see an indwelling spiritual principle of life, a ‘soul’,
(and) he extends the same view even to inanimate nature, (to) the worship of
sticks and stones….”

Consider the
irony:what had been for of missionaries
of the Lutheran church in Fennoscandia of the 17th and 18th
centuriesthe ‘sin’ of worshipping
‘false gods of wood and stone’, had become for anthropologists, beginning in
the 19th century, the philosophical ‘error’ of projecting spirit
phantoms onto mere objects: “sticks and stones”.(14) Anthropology—having earlier consigned
‘spirit’ and the ‘supernatural’ to the exclusive province of religion—proceeded
to fall prey to its own form of dualism, subject versus object, often referred
to as “objectivism’.

Syncretism

While it
might be tempting to view the above as a ‘zero-sum’ clash of incommensurate animist
and non-animist ontological frames, the story is not so simple.That is, while the ‘old animism’ of Tylor
relegated the divinities of the Saami to the form of mental projections, constituting
a true ‘collision’ of ontological frames, for the Christian missionaries, the
‘false’ gods were gods nonetheless—even if they were of the realm of
nature.Rydving states that “It must be
emphasised that during the whole period the clergymen took the indigenous
religion in all seriousness.” Högström wrote “a religion, though it may be
false and superstitious, is, however, for us always less dangerous, than no
religion….godlessness is for our race infinitely more harmful, than superstition
itself….”(11)

The areas of
commonality provided a narrow bridge for syncretism, or blending of traditions,
across the gulf between the animist Saami and the non-animist Christian
ontologies.For example, a proposal was
made to the church by some Saamis that they would incorporate the Christian God
alongside their own pantheon of animistic divinities of the upper world, and
would treat their saivo guardian spirits as angels.(11)

Moreover, some
noaidis placed powerful Christian figures on their drums. For example, in the tracing of the drumhead from
Part 4, above, Manker identifies as the figure at the centre as the
“Radien-trinity. Included are
Radienattje “The almighty (father)” the highest divinity of the upper realm of
the tripartite Saami cosmography, flanked by Radienakka the mother and
Radienpardne the son. Manker says, “All have
halos above their heads.” (25) Sommarström suggests that this figure is a
deliberate parallel with the Christian trinity, a “Saami Holy Family” with the
Holy Spirit in female form. (26) Manker identifies the figure at the upper left,
above, as a church that is capped by a Christian cross. (25)

While these
Christian figures may sometimes have been added to avoid confiscation and
destruction of the drums, there is evidence that it also indicated a deeper ontological
engagement, what Äikäs and Salmi call “syncretism from below”. (27) Karsten says “The interesting thing in regard to
these figures is that the Lapps obviously believed that by means of the drum
they were able to influence even these Christian divinities for the purpose of
obtaining favours appreciated from a Christian point of view, divine help,
absolution from sins, eternal happiness, etc.” (14)

The church
of the time was unyielding in its opposition to these overtures. It rejected
the Saami offer to recognise the Christian God as a part of the pantheon of
Saami divinities.Moreover, missionaries
drew little comfort from the presence of Christian iconography on the drums—intermixed
as they were with ‘demons’ and ‘false gods’—and continued to collect and
destroy them until only 70 were known to remain across Fennoscandia.In the face of the animist challenge, the
Lutheran church of the 17th and 18th centuries did not
wish to consider any opening, let alone a fundamental revisiting of its doctrines.
(11)

By the
middle of the 19th century, the church did, however, accommodate the
work of Lars Levi Laestadius, a Swedish Saami pastor of the Lutheran church
with half Saami parentage, who founded a revival movement within the
church.

Laestadius
included in its elements Saami earth spirits, interpreted according to the
Bible, and a rite called liikutuksia that bears some resemblance to an
ecstatic shamanic state. (29) Many of his
sermons were, according to Juha Pentikäinen, “filled with names and concepts
from Sami mythology and the Sami supranormal world, albeit often with new
meanings.” (28) That is, in spite of his
incorporation of familiar Saami mythological elements, Laestadius maintained
them securely within the Christian ontological frame.

The
syncretistic or blending efforts undertaken by Saamis represent attempts to
preserve elements of their indigenous spirituality in a changing historical
landscape.However, in the end what
proved to be the most reliable means was the retreat into what Rydving calls “an
underground culture”.Rydving says,
“Since the indigenous religion developed more and more into a separate universe
of discourse which was inaccessible to the clergymen, parts of the indigenous
religion could be preserved.” (11) As a result, according to Karsten, “well
into the 19th century drums were secretly beaten and sacrifices made
to seites.” (14)

An important
historical note:Äikäs and Salmi report
that “In Norway the church has…acknowledged its responsibility in wrongdoings
toward Sámi traditions during the Christianization process.” (27)

Engagement With Arctic-Saami Animism

What is
missing from both sets of views—those of missionaries of the church of the time
and those of early anthropologists influenced by Tylor—is genuine comprehension
of the non-dualist, animist spirituality of the people of the pre-Christian
Arctic-Saami shamanic complex.This is
in spite of the fact that the wellsprings of Arctic-Saami spirituality
pre-dated by thousands of years both the Christian and the modernist
ontologies.

Lapponia by Johannes Schefferus (1673)

In the writings
of figures of post-modern philosophy such as Lyotard, both the animist and the Cartesian
modernist ontologies can be seen as narratives,
i.e., socially constructed ‘stories’ of how the world works. The status of a ‘master narrative’, implicitly
claimed by modernism since the Enlightenment, belongs to neither (and in fact is
not tenable on philosophical grounds), meaning that in Wallis’s words, “this
animist ontological position is recognised as equally valid to a Western one….”
(6) As a result, anthropology in the
21st century, like the Lutheran church of the 17th and 18th
centuries, is facing an ‘animist challenge’ of its own. How has it responded to date?

Many anthropologists
are currently reconsidering the animist ontologies of hunter-gatherer-fisher
cultures, leading to deeper engagements with them.However, in the view of Wallis, much of the
new work continues to be from the “rationalist materialist”, i.e. modernist,
standpoint, but now in an updated form.For
example, one influential current focuses on the altered state of consciousness (ASC)
of shamans, locating the origin of their
experiences of interacting with spirit persons and travelling to the other
world in neurophysical attributes ‘hardwired’ in the brain, that are activated
in trance states. (30)As a result of such approaches, in the view of
Wallis, ”Animism continues to be
positioned as incorrect and a projection, making the updated version so safe
for humanistic liberal thought.” (6)

A different
direction is being taken in the work of ‘new animists’ in archaeology and
anthropology like Robert J. Wallis, Graham Harvey, Timothy Ingold and others.Reflecting a perspective of this emerging
trend, Wallis states, “Contra Tylor, indigenous communities are…dynamic and
creative agents of their own ‘survivance', historically and in the present,
with sophisticated ways of knowing.”(31)

Robert J. Wallis, Professor of Visual Culture,

Richmond University

In Finland, ‘new
animist’ authors such as Lahelma, Helander-Renvall, Back Danielson, and Lund focus
specifically on the indigenous spirituality of the Saami.I am hoping to build on their work here by
casting the animist relational ontologies of early Finland in a form—as
ontological frames—that can be specifically applied to the interpretation of
sacred art.

In the next
post I will present the three core elements of the frame of the Arctic/Saami
shamanic complex, beginning with the ontological forms of the spirit persons ‘bound
to the landscape’: the sieidi and the saivo.Since I will be referring to the accounts of the
Christian missionaries, and authors in the modernist tradition who make use of
these accounts, we will again encounter the dualisms of spirit versus matter
and subject versus object. However, we
will also see how they are superseded within the context of the non-dualist,
animist spirituality of the Arctic-Saami.

11. Rydving, Hakan.Tracing Sami Traditions:
In Search of the Indigenous Religion among the Western Sami during the 17th and
18th Centuries. Oslo : The Institute for Comparative Research in Human
Culture (IFSK), 2010.